The Sage of the 7 Paths
by Duke.L.Lovaine
Summary: Naruto's parents are still alive, but they neglect him over his sister that contains the Kyuubi and their bloodlines. Naruto grew alone, and unlocks the Rinnegan. A prodigy, that becomes the youngest ANBU ever, Konoha's Kuro no Tora. Now, Naruto will grow to be the new sage. The sage of the 7 paths


An ANBU, quickly jumping from tree to tree, rushed to Nami, in aid to a former fellow ANBU. To untrained eyes, he was nothing but a shadow. That had earned him the title of "Konoha's _Kuro no Tora_, Shadow Tiger". He was only about 4'3, but had a rather muscular figure. Shiny golden hair swiftly moved back, from the speed. His Tiger mask hid his face, but pair of purplish-grey eyes were still, even if barely, visible beneath it. He was the one of the youngest ANBU Black Ops ever, having only 8 years of age when he entered, 4 years ago. He was also known by having eliminated more enemy ninjas in four years than most ANBU do in their entire career. He was Naruto _Uzumaki-Namikaze_, neglected son of the Hokage and wielder of the legendary Dojutsu, the Rinnegan.

Suddenly, Naruto stopped running, and letted himself fall to the ground. He had reached the place were Kakashi, formally Inu, had told him to met him. The gravity defying silver hair he was looking for was visible ahead, training the team he was in charge of in simple chakra control exercises. His Team 7, composed by Uchiha Sasuke, the last loyal Uchiha, Haruno Sakura, the pink banshee, and a red-headed by the name of Uzumaki-Namikaze Mito, the Hokage's daughter, Kyuubi's Jinchuriki and Naruto's bitch of a sister. Sakura had alredy completed the exercise, but the other two, because of their bigger reserves, were having troubles making it. Naruto watched his sister falling to the ground, butt first, and was having trouble controlling his laught. It was so damn funny!

Soon, not wanting to scare his older ex-partner, he made himself known, by coughing to his hand a bit. Team 7 and his sensei looked at him in high alert, before Kakashi relaxed, alredy recognizing the ANBU.

"Ha, Tora-san, just in time" Kakashi said, making his _cute little genin_ relax a bit "I hope I didn't called you in bad time"

"No problem, Kakashi-sensei. Actually, you just saved me from having the most boring week EVAR" Naruto said, smiling a bit behind his mask , before frowning "Can you believe were out of assassination missions?!" it was something unheard of. Kakashi's single visible eye widen in shock. Never in history a band of assassination-specialized nin were out of assassination missions. And that only meant one thing.

"TORA! What did I told you about taking more than 25 per week!"Kakashi complained. The scene seemed that of a father scrolling to his son. Tora scratched the back of his head, as he sweat-dropped. Team 7 stared weirdly at this. Not only this guy killed more than 25 persons in a week, as he looked just about their age and was an ANBU! "Right, Team 7, this is Tora-san, from the ANBU black ops. Tora-san, these are Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki-Namikaze Mito and Haruno Sakura"

Sasuke remembered the a name he heard before '_Tora… like in Konoha's Kuro no Tora ?!_' "Are you, by any chance, Konoha's _Kuro no Tora_, the ANBU that moves faster than a shadow?" Sasuke asked, shocking Mito and Sakura. Naruto nodded

"So, you're Uchiha Sasuke, huh? Damn, you really look like him…" Naruto said, with a sad tone, thinking on his former teammate and friend, Weasel, a. k. a. Uchiha Itachi, and his so-called _betrayal._

"HOW DO YOU KNOW HIM?!" Sasuke said, outraged "I'm not like him!" Kakashi was looking at Sasuke with a bit of rage in his eyes. He had no idea what was happened between them, but he still held rage against someone he didn't even know. Naruto should be able to break that rage; he had that kind of influence. Maybe calling Tora to help them some more times would help him to give up being an Avenger.

"He was my captain, teammate and a friend before you-know-what happened" The Shadow Tiger said, his voice now cold and emotionless, causing the genin to have a chill up their spines "I'm not saying your like him. You just have the same potential, but you lack pratice" he finished '_and you have way too much hate in you, to be like him_' he added, mentaly "Kakashi-sensei, you need to take care of that!" he said, turning his masked face to the former Capitan, that had a strange glint in his eye

"Actually, I wanted you to take care of them for a while. You know, teach them chakra control and stuffs like that…" Kakashi said, as he pulled his orange book from his pocket, making Naruto's eye twitch under his mask. The lazy pervert wanted him to take care of his team, so that he could read his cheap porn book!

"Sorry Kakashi- ero-sensei, I don't babysit" Naruto said, trying hard to keep himself from burning the said book.

That last sentence made Mito enraged "Shut up, you over-grown pussy! I'm the Hokage's daughter so respect me!" she said, her face rivaling her hair in color. Sasuke also seemed angry at the ANBU Tiger.

"Respect is earned, and right now, I don't have any respect for any of you" he said, trying hard not to murder the red-headed. What a cocky bitch. She considers herself stronger than anyone by using her parent's name and the chakra of the beast if threatened, but take away the Kyuubi's chakra, and she's only a scared little girl. She barely knows how to use her chakra. She just pushes it to a technique and hopes it work. Sasuke only hmn-ed, and turned his face in disgust from the blond.

Sakura, however, seemed calmer, and even accepting, as there was something in the blond, masked ANBU that seemed to make her respect him. She instantly knew what that was. Superiority. Not like Sasuke's, which was cold and false. This was one that made her be weary of him, but also trust him to do what's right. Naruto also seemed to notice that, and he smiled behind his mask. Who would expect a fan-girl to be able to detect him as her superior? Maybe this girl did have a future, after all. He then looked over to Kakashi, and back to Sakura, before once again, returning him to the silver headed "The pinky there, however, I accept training her a bit, when we get back to the village" Sakura looked surprised and grateful. She hated to be called weak, but with two power houses on her team, she was out of luck. But, once again, the god's seemed to smile at her.

Mito and Sasuke were staring unbelievably at Sakura. The useless fan-girl had been chosed to be trained by an ANBU?! It could only be a joke. Probably the ANBU was too young to know what he was doing. Then they started to look at her with jealousy. She was going to be trained by Konoha's Shadow Tiger, one of the most famous ANBU in the village. They couldn't believe her luck.

Kakashi only nodded to his ex-student, as he had also seen Sakura sense the boy's power, where the others failed, too tainted by their pride to notice. He watched Sakura's look of surprise over her being chosed and his partners look of jealousy "Do you want to be trained by Tora-san, Sakura?" he asked.

"if you wouldn't mind, Kakashi-sensei…" she said, wanting his sensei approval before making her decision

"Not at all. Tora-san is one of the best person's to teach you. Like you, he has lots of chakra control, and he made up most his reserves by repetevely sealing his chakra away, something I cannot do myself. I think you couldn't come up with a better teacher for you. And he was my first student himself." Kakashi said, showing the similar traits between his former student and Sakura "Besides, you just passed his test! He would probably beat me to a bloody pulp only for me allow him to train you"

"Test? What test?!" Mito said, enraged by her teammate's luck and for being pretty much ignored by the ANBU

"His personal test. A Personal Pride test" Kakashi said, looking disappointed with his students "and you two passed, meaning that, for him, you fail. He hates self-pride. You were too focused on yourselves to notice that, even if he's about your age, he's also an ANBU, and by so, he's your superior."

"What a cheap test. Probably the over-grown kitty couldn't came up with a better o-" she was rudely interrupted by the sound of the ground crumbling and a massive killer intent. Tora was unconsciously leaking chakra and killer intent, at such an intensity that was not only crushing the ground beneath him, but also causing everyone to have difficulty at breathing. Kakashi knew that if he didn't intervene now, he was going to explain to the Hokage why was his daughter ripped to shreds.

"Let's go inside Tora-san, Sakura, we need to talk about your role on the fight" Kakashi said, knowing that his ex-student was about to blow up the entire forest. With his sister right in the middle

Once inside the house, Naruto and Kakashi made up a pretty simple, but effective plan, while Sakura just tried to understand her new sensei a bit better. Kakashi also gave him an update on his student's abilities and weaknesses.

"So, the enemy is Zabuza Momachi, the demon of the bloody mist, and an unknown senbon-neddle expert" Naruto repeated, thinking ahead of the fight "I think we should do like this…" Naruto then started explaining his idea, and the positions they should take to make it happen

As soon as finished they called the other newbie's to have dinner and reveal it. Naruto stood, still with his mask on, eating his 4th sick of dango, seated in front of Kakashi. As much as the genin tried to see, only his scar-less chin was visible. Naruto was extremely comfortable with his mask on, and didn't had any intentions of removing it soon. Tsunami was eyeing strangely at the new comer, but Tazuna seemed to relax a bit more with an infamed Konoha ANBU protecting him. Even if it was also a kid.

"Ha, right, Tsunami-san, Tazuna-san, this is Tora-san, from our village's ANBU division. He's here to take down Gato and his followers, and he'll also help us defeating Zabuza and his partner" Kakashi said, trying not to laught of his students attempts to peek behind Naruto's mask, like they tried to him. Naruto just said 'hi' before returning to eat his alredy half empty plate of dango.

"ANBU?" Tsunami asked, not sure of the meaning of the word

"A division specialized in espionage, stealth and assassination" Kakashi explained, to which Tora-san nodded, confirming it

"Espionage and assassination, such a young boy… How old are you, Tora-san?" Tsunami asked, giving a sad look toward Naruto, that had now finish eating

"I'm 12 ma'am" Naruto said, respectfully. This profoundly shocked everyone in the room. They weren't expecting him to be so young, with the exception of Kakashi, who knew the boy's identity. Team 7 the most uneasy, as this boy, only 1 year older than some of them, was a trained assassin with an entry on the Bingo-book, and alredy had hundreds of kills under his belt. And Sakura's soon-to-be sensei

"Ok, now, everyone listen close. This is what we'll do tomorrow. I'll fight Zabuza, or at least, hold him, until Tora-san finishes his part. Sasuke and Mito, you will fight his partner. Sakura, you'll stay here and protect this house. Tora-san will go, eliminate Gato and replace him with a **henge**-d shadow clone, then he will come back, and help us in our fights. Got it?" the copy-ninja said

"Hai, Kakashi-sensei!" Team 7 and Tora said, in a weird sync.

Then Inari, Tsunami's son, slammed his hands in the table "Why?!" he shouted "Why do you all train to try and fight Gato? You'll all die! You don't know what is like to have a harsh live!" Tazuna's grandson shouted. At this point, all the ninjas had enough

"Most of we, ninjas, had a harsh live. I watched my older brother massacre my own clan, leaving only me behind." Sasuke said, his voice cold and emotionless. The family was shocked by this.

"I have a demon sealed inside of me" Mito said, causing them to look pitiful at her, with the exception of Naruto, which was still thinking of creative ways to kill the little bitch.

"I was forced to kill my own teammate" Kakashi said, lowering his head a bit, before taking out his book, trying to push the memory back to the darkest corners of his mind.

"I was practically disowned by my parents and had to make my first kill at age 6" Tora said, making team 7 look at him weirdly "and the closest thing I have to a dad is this pervert, over here." He said, pointing to Kakashi, which was presently reading his little orange book, with Tazuna peeking from behind, while having a small nose-bleed.

"I also think of you as pretty much a son, Tora-san, but don't call me a pervert…" Kakashi said, grumbling something about '_ungrateful youth_' and that '_Gai is starting to rub on me_'

"But you are a pervert. Or you don't remember what happened the last time I used that _technique_ near you." Naruto said, making Kakashi visibly pale "or when you tried to blackmail me to convince Ero-Senin to let you help him on his '_research_' … or when you got a **henge**-d shadow clone on the female side of the hot-springs… or-" by now, Kakashi was paler than a ghost

"Ok, ok, I got it! I am a bit of a pervert." he said, nervous and fearful of the female rage, as the 3 on the room (Mito, Sakura and Tsunami) were alredy releasing some serious amounts of killer intent, scaring Sasuke, Tazuna and Inari. Tora, however, seemed unaffected, as he started giggling, before cracking into a full blown evil laught, effortlessly making Team 7 to think if it was a good thing to spend time with the ANBU division at such young age (**_The answer, NO. They're a bunch of perverts or sadistic bastards that love creeping out of nowhere. But hey, who isn't a bit of either raise his hand, and let's see how many liars we have here._**)

"…I finally got you to admit it… I have to get Neko-san and Ookami-san to know this…" the masked Naruto said, as he started to calm down, but still giggling a bit. He then started to make a series of hand signs, before biting his thumb, drawing some blood "**Summoning no Jutsu**", he said, as he summoned a tinny tiger cub, with only the size of a small dog, on the dinner table, making the girls melt under the cute little creature's shiny eyes.

It had a black jacket, indicating it was a Ninken of some sorts. The Tiger cub didn't wearied a Hitai-ate, only a stitched white Konoha leaf on the back of his jacket, meaning he was a personal, signature summon "Taga-san, Kakashi-sensei just admitted out loud he is a pervert!" the newly named tiger, Taga, just stared at Kakashi, which was now pouting in his chair and trying to recover the pieces of his shattered ego. Unbelieving of what he had heard, he stared till he realized it was true , before he just weirdly giggle a bit, covering his little mouth and nose with his clawed paw "Please go tell to Neko-san and Ookami-san! They need to know this astounding news!"  
"**Got it, Tora-sama! Hihihi… Hime-sama also needs to know this!**" the cub said, with his cute, young voice, before taking off, as fast as he could, to the Konoha ANBU headquarters.

"Now, everyone, go to sleep. It's late and tomorrow we need to kick some asses! And Sakura, I'll place some clones near the house, just in case there more than one attackers " Naruto said, his mood considerably improving from the win against Kakashi. Everyone just nodded (or hmn-ed)

**Konoha – 2 am **

The village hidden in the leaves was peaceful, and almost everyone was sleeping. The Hokage and his wife were also sleeping, after a day fighting the worst nightmare of any Kage. _Paperwork_. Oh, yes, how do you think a whole village is runned? With goddamn _paperwork_. But now, it was over, for today. Minato was simply going to appreciate the peace and quiet of the night, in his fluffy bed, with his favorite pillow and by the side his beautiful wife. Yup, peace and quie-

The Hokage's beautiful thoughts of peace and a world without paperwork were interrupted by a pair of sterical, even a bit mad, laughs, coming from the ANBU Black Ops headquarters, which probably woke up the entire village, as a lot of lights were turned on. A thought was practically heard in the entire village

' _What in Kami's name are they doing this time?!Not another joke contest, I hope! _'

That's right. The Konoha ANBU's were known by outsiders by their strictness and stealth. In the village too, however, they were also known by their huge night parties and their weird habit of doing joke contests. In the middle of the night.

The ANBU were crazy, was the conclusion the Hokage had found. First, there was the mysterious Tora, named by the Sandaime, when he away was with his family for 2 weeks, said to have ended the stock of assassination missions, and even earned the name of Konoha's Shadow Tiger, as was said to be able to give **Hiraishin** a run for his money. Then there were Neko and Ookami, a powerful team, but completely unsupportable when spitted apart, with the exception of when in missions, or with Kakashi.

But then again, he once did love to go to the ANBU parties …

**Nami – Next morning**

Tora was peacefully sleeping on top of the highest branch of a random tall tree, his mask still on, but, realizing the sun was about to rise and he should probably get going to his mission he got up, brushed any dust from his outfit, and simply jumped, easily landing on his feet. Jumping down from a 6 storage-high tree is nothing if you can control gravity. This was one of the reasons he appreciated to have the Rinnegan.

Naruto/Tora was now off, after his prey and only to return a few hours later. Because he was a predator. And he was after one those he hated the most. Naruto was very picky when it came to his prey. He would never kill or hurt a woman or a child, if he had a choice. He liked more to kill traitors, rapist and power-thirst man. Even then he didn't like to kill. He just did it. If he could, he would just arrest his target. But most of the time, that wasn't possible. So he just took the mission, as he was a quick killer, unlike most of the other ANBU from other villages. He hated to prolong his targets pain. He was a Tiger, and they were his prey. He just did it, as quick as possible. And right now, Gato was his prey. And he fit all his categories, which as something very rare.

He made it to the very epicenter of Gato's empire, the master bedroom, without even sounding one alarm. Apparently, Gato was taking a bath. Tora just stood there, laid in Gato's bed, till he heard the sound of a door opening and closing. By the door, was a short, fat man, with nothing but a towel hiding his parts. Apparently, the man had yet to notice his visitor, so Naruto decided to made himself known

"You're Gato, huh? I was expecting someone… a bit taller" he said, looking over at Gato, who was shocked by the presence of someone on his bedroom "Too bad, but you die now" Naruto said, his voice a bit sad, as he took out and thrown his signature Shuriken to his prey's head, before making a **henge**-d shadow clone, that looked just like the dead-man, without the shuriken in his head.

It was one of his old habits. Marking his prey with his own black, 3-tiped curved shuriken. Sometimes when he found his opponent worthy, he used a special one, with a silver attacking Tiger craved on one of the tips and the silver kanji for 'Soul' in another. It was his signal that he hoped they could pass to the other side.

Right now, as he sprinted away to help his partners, Naruto was thinking in an issue that has been troubling him for a while. He needed bodies, to install his own paths in. His eyes had started to hurt for a while, and after a little research he found out that each Path needed to have his own body, and having all 6 fully functional in his body was causing his eyes to over load. However, he refused to use a weak body to this. He would only use the body of someone who shared the same ideal as him. Bring peace to this world, or at least, die trying to. He didn't want to seal their personality away, as it is part of their body, to him. He even had alredy implanted some special Chakra Metal on himself in the form of black-colored piercings, that would allow him to keep the bodies functional by sending them his chakra, once he found them. He also had the matching Receivers sealed away in a scroll, in case he found one in his missions.

As he finally arrived at the bridge, he found the ground covered by thick mist. With the Rinnegan, he was able to see that the battles were alredy taking place, as huge amounts of Chakra were being released. Sasuke and Mito appeared to be in the most trouble, so Naruto chosed to help them.

They were trapped in a huge, mirrored ice dome, something that was very familiar to Tora '_No, it can't be him… can it?_' he thought, as he easily went through the barrier, using the Rinnegan to find a gap on it, only to found a unconscious Sasuke on the ground with several ice senbon-needle on his neck and Mito starting to use Kyuubi's chakra, in her 1 tailed form, fighting and losing to a masked hunter-nin. But the hunter's chakra… was so familiar to Tora "Haku?!" he said, making the hunter-nin turn his face to him, just as Mito fell to the ground with some senbon on his neck.

"Naruto…" the hunter said, as he throwed his mask to the ground, revealing a very feminine, heart-shaped face…

So, first chapter, how was it?

Please review, and thanks for reading!

Bye - **Duke.**


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